Paint Schoodic

Sunday, January 13, 2013

On Art and Culture

Marc Quinn's sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant was the first
commission for the Fourth Plinth Project in Trafalgar Square (2005-2007). It combines the best of audacity and craftsmanship.

This weekend I had the good fortune to see the great Irish-American
band Solas on the second stop
of their “Shamrock City” tour. Solas quarries
material earlier explored by the Irish band Horslips:
the Irish immigrant experience.

While Horslips were pioneering Celtic rock in the 1970s,
Solas is more or less a straight-up Irish traditional band, a tradition that
extends back before the mists of time. But layered on top of the music, “Shamrock
City” includes a video projection in the style of Ken Burns’ “The Civil War,”
which was a groundbreaking documentary released in 1990. I felt in some ways
that I was in a cultural time warp.

On the way home, we launched into a spirited discussion in
which we weighed the superior musicianship of Solas against the innovations of
Horslips. Which was absolutely the “better” band? The answer, of course, is
both and neither, because all such debates are ultimately pointless—both bands are
poetic and moving and justified in their place in musical history.

The experience got me thinking about the ways in which art
is and isn’t temporal. Is Bach any less of a genius because the Baroque was in decline
at the time he was writing? Time has a way of leveling these bumps in the road.
I keenly appreciate the difference between skinny jeans and parachute pants,
but I’ll be darned if I can identify the difference between various phases of
Regency dress. It’s of absolutely no moment to me that Bach didn’t invent the
fugue—when I’m feeling fugal, he’s my go-to guy.

On the other hand, art is also nothing if not relative to
its time and place. I was looking at a highly mediocre photo manipulation on Facebook
yesterday. It had a middle ground of golden trees, some lavender action in the
far distance, and the requisite figure on the foreground. I said to myself: “That would make a very marketable
painting.” Photoshop has, no doubt, affected the way we paint.

There is nothing new in technology driving art. The introduction
of new pigments in the 19th century drove French impressionism and indeed made alla prima painting possible. But that
is a matter of materials, not outlook. What has changed with the recent
acceleration of interactive media is how viewers perceive the world.

We are all familiar with the idea that photography liberates
the visual artist from the need for representation. We’re less easy with the
idea that it also creates other obligations. What magic can painting create to compete
with Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy?

At first glance, heeding the siren call of mass media seems
like inspiration, but it stops the artist from looking for their internal voice.
Despite any other consideration, that internal voice must be individual; it
must have the attitude of “f--- it all,” which is the polar opposite of
whatever mass media is driving toward. In fact, that inner “f--- you” is the
most important tool an artist has.

We live in one of the most beautifully-designed worlds in
history, certainly the best-designed period in my lifetime. One need look no further
than modern cars on the highway. With the exception of the Nissan Juke, cars
are far more beautiful than they’ve ever been before. Modern architecture is beautiful,
modern highways are lovely, and if I compare the humble disposable pen of today
to that of my youth, I’m practically transported.

Part of the improvement is in materials, part is because we’ve
shaken off the thrall of modernism and are again paying attention to history,
and part of it is computer design. Part of it may also be a first glimmer of a
change in attitudes about art—the end of the cult of genius.

Not comfortable? You're not smart enough!

Frank
Lloyd Wright—peace be upon him—was unquestionably a 20th century
genius. In fact, he was such a genius that all minor matters such as
livability, waterproof roofs, etc., were subservient to his brilliance. Heaven
help you if you found his interiors damp, dark, or uncomfortable, or couldn’t
read a trashy novel seated in one of the chairs you were required to keep in situ. Elevate your thinking!

However, nobody could accuse him of ignoring craftsmanship,
which sets him apart from many other geniuses. In visual arts for the last
century, audacity has generally been revered above craftsmanship.

This semester, my Sandy was required to watch a movie in her
graduate-level Art Theory and Criticism class. I repeat her description,
because I cannot find the actual video without wading through a lagoon of porn:
“Naked men smeared bright red lipstick slowly, erotically, all over the lower
half of their faces, then danced naked. In the next scene, they were in a pile,
naked. Then one man grabbed another’s penis and flung it.”*

The point of showing this movie in an art theory class was
that audacity quickly pales. One must constantly accelerate the offensiveness
of the material to engage the viewer. But where is craftsmanship in this? If
American teens can effortlessly film their own naked bodies with their phones,
how can it be a question of skill?

Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Turner Prize-winning sculpture,
entitled Death (2003). Yes, they’re audacious,but it makes me think that if you've seen sex once, you've seen it a thousand times.

There was a proverb that still had some currency when I was young:
“He that touches pitch shall be defiled.”This
proverb presumed that purity is a value worth preserving. A Victorian could not
have seen that video without feeling that he had “touched pitch,” but I can’t
imagine an American born after 1960 who has any clue what that proverb means.
But this too—as every paradigm ever has—shall pass.

So how does one move past audacity? Marc Quinn’s “Alison Lapper Pregnant”
to me is the apotheosis of the modern ideal. The model is obviously
handicapped, suffering from a congenital disorder that left her without arms
and with truncated legs. She was raised in an institution. This is, frankly a
far more brutal reality than any mincing, lipstick-wearing penis-slappers could
ever attain. And the sculpture itself—carved from Carrara marble, is technically
beautiful.